On Valentine's Day

[annwfyn]

Ooooh...I already wrote this ramble. Look!. It went up last year.

I think it goes mostly like this.

There are two main objections to Valentine's Day, raised vociferously and articulately by a large number of people. These objections are as follows:


"Valentine's Day is tacky and commercialised. It encourages fake sentimentality. Why should you only be able to tell the one you love that you love them on February 14th. You should express this love every day of the year, in a much more original and meaningful manner."


Every time I see this argument, a number of the same thoughts run through my head. The first thought is to take a look at the name of the person saying this. On occasion I am suddenly reminded of the Significant Other of this upstanding advocate for daily romance sitting on my sofa, and muttering darkly about the fact that this paragon of daily affection has actually been known to forget birthdays, anniversaries, and actually tends to not show affection until the second bottle of port.

The second, and less hypocritical thought, is to look at my own love life and work out how often I really show my long suffering boyfriend what I truly feel for him. The somewhat sad answer is 'not nearly often enough'. It isn't that I don't adore Jeremiah, from the top of his purple dyed head, to the tips of his new rock clad feet. It's just...well...real life gets in the way.

I don't tell him I love him in the mornings, because he's often still dozing when I get up to head off towards college. In the evenings there are often other people around, and I suspect that ksirafai, molez and castorlion would rapidly develop insulin related conditions if they were exposed to a nightly syrupy display of flowers, chocolate, and romantic displays of affection. I don't regularly shower Jeremiah with little gifts and thoughtful tokens of my esteem, after Nationwide's last helpful letter on the topic of unauthorised overdraft charges, and anyway, he is tricky enough to buy for at the best of times.

So, most of the time we just bimble along, affectionately and happily enough, but it's pretty easy to take each other for granted, and I rather like the idea that occasionally something happens to jolt me out of my contented complacency, and push me towards some of the slightly bigger gestures that we'd make when we were first causing mass social upheaval and chaos by getting together.




"Valentine's Day is horrible for all those who don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend/secret stalker. It makes them feel bad. And that sucks. Grrrr. It's all commercialised nonsense anyway, and those who don't celebrate it are better people for it."


This rant always tends to trigger off a far more dangerous rant in me.

You see, I'm very aware that there are holidays out there which are horribly exclusionary towards those of us who are unable to participate in them. I know there are holidays which are designed as days when loved ones can be spoiled and shown appreciation, but often only succeed in making hundreds, and probably thousands of people feel like crap. I know there are allegedly happy holidays, which for some are sinkholes of misery and a horrible awareness of a big gaping gap in their lives.

Has anyone out there ever spent time with me on Mother's Day?

It sucks. For the first three years after Mum died I used to burst into tears at least once on Mother's Day. The weeks running up to Mother's Day were this constant, nasty, nagging ache as I saw cards, posters, TV ads, all of which seemed to say 'you know, your mum died and you're alone. Look at what everyone else has!'

My sister has a far worse tale of someone at her work asking her what she was doing for Mother's Day. When she said 'nothing', not wanting to get into our family trauma, she was treated to a big comedy rant on 'god, you're an awful daughter, I feel sorry for your mother, you've got to do something nice for Mother's Day' which only stopped when she burst into tears in the middle of her office.

If you've lost a parent, Mother's Day, and Father's Day, are horrible miserable days.

So far, I've never seen anyone other than me seriously talk about banning them. No newspaper columnists bitch about it in national papers. Come to think of it, no one suggests banning Christmas because it makes it really sucky to be Jewish and not be able to get to the shops coz they're all closed for someone else's holiday. No one suggests banning birthdays, coz those Jehovah's Witnesses kids have a more miserable time seeing everyone else's presents.

We're not all one big homogenous mass. All people are not the same. Everyone's life experiences are different, and in many ways, any celebration will always highlight the lack of that selfsame thing to celebrate for another. That doesn't mean that we should never celebrate. In fact, I think we should celebrate more things, give everyone their day to feel sparkly.

And I'll just keep plotting my guerilla raids on Clinton's Cards every March.

So. That's my ramble in defense of Valentine's Day. Mostly the same as last year. Maybe I'll come up with something cool to say next year.

(by the way, this new found appreciation for Valentine's Day may have something to do with the vase of red roses sat on top of televion and the box of Thornton's chocolates in the kitchen. Those really did make me happy...)

Comments

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Actually, there was something in the paper recently about a primary school which was avoiding Mother's Day because 5% of the pupils didn't 'have' a mother - whether due to bereavement, being in foster care, poarents having split up and they were living with the father...

Seeing as a school's focus on it was likely to mostly involve extensive making of glitter-and-felt-tip cards, I don't think it was a major loss from the kids' education...possibly a bit PC-gone-mad, but for the kids in that situation it *would* have been shoving it in their face, without any real educational benefit to balance the scales.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Really? I've never heard of anything like that before.

*ponders*

I'm not sure how I feel about that. A bit of me is glad, because I totally empathise with those kids who don't have a mother, and it can be a really tough day.

On the other hand, rational and not emotional me wonders if that's a bit of a shame. Mothers, especially mothers of young children, do such a lot for their kids, make a lot of sacrifices, and it is quite a nice idea that on one day they get fussed over a little. My mum always loved Mother's Day - I always wrote her a poem in a card. Nothing more special than that, although the year I was in Nepal and still managed to get her a card with a poem in it (I wrote the poem, e mailed my Dad, and got him to write it in a card) I apparently reduced her to tears.

I wonder whether in a school situation it wouldn't have been better to focus on the 'make a card for whoever looks after you'. But then, I'm sure that at that age, the school knows the children, and I suspect it might be a specific teacher responding to the situation on the ground, whether that be proximity to a foster home, a very recent bereavement in the class, or something like that.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Come to think of it, no one suggests banning Christmas because it makes it really sucky to be Jewish and not be able to get to the shops coz they're all closed for someone else's holiday.

Have you ever been in my company around Christmas time...? :)

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

...and if my Significant Other doesn't pony up at least a 'yes, I do still exist and I do still love you' email by the time I get back from Cthulhu tonight, after we explicitly talked a week ago* and I emailed him a masterpiece of Garou/Valentine geekery last night, there may be Ructions :)

*I don't normally care about V-Day, but what with him being a couple of continents away and us not communicating that often, I made it quite clear that a small gesture would be nice. I'm not completely unreasonable. Just mostly :)

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I think you are being entirely reasonable!

*fingers crossed*

Hope you get a nice email!

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Thanks :)

I'd rather not kill him, I quite like him!

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Boyfriendicide has been averted.

uksilverfang is a very silly and very sweet Significant Other, who forgot tonight was my Cthulhu night and spent the early hours of his morning repeatedly trying to phone me. He finally remembered and somehow managed to track down my GM's phone number, but by that time I'd headed home, where he finally managed to catch me.

I knew there was a reason I didn't want to kill him :)

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

mmmm thorntons :)

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Good rant. I don't really disagree on any point!

[adze.livejournal.com]

It's not so much, for me, the idea that you should do it every day. To me, it feels like Valentine's Day is the day when you're forced to show affection - when you have to, rather than when you want to.

And that's why it sit's kind of badly for me. I don't really disagree with the concept, just the implementation.

It does kind of suck if you're single, but no more than any other day when you're around affectionate couples.

[kittyboo-tastic.livejournal.com]

my parents used to work in advertsing and told me that Valentine's day was launched in the 70s by Interflora to boost the sales of flowers and bouquets. see how it works! now you can't possibly ignore valentine's day if you're in couple, unless you want a massive argument.
well, luckily, my better half hates valentine's day too, + he is sick so we won't do anything tonight.

also, there it is really more pleasant to get an unexpected little someting/ attention/ evening out than just follwo a trend.

on a general basis, i don't like doing stuff 'because i have to', 'because it's tradition'. i don't really like new year's eve because it HAS to be a special evening, just as i don't like Mother's day, Valentine's day etc...

I like Christmas as a 'family-gathering thing' but it has been a bit disappointing lately.
I like birthdays because it's a great occasion to make someone feel really special.

I never spend a day without telling my better half how special he is and how important he is for me [please, don't puke]
Generally, i think we don't tell often enough our loved ones how we feel about them.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

my parents used to work in advertsing and told me that Valentine's day was launched in the 70s by Interflora to boost the sales of flowers and bouquets

That makes perfect sense, except for not being true :)

I don't actually approve of Valentine's Day, but it's not a recently-invented thing by any stretch of the imagination. The day was associated with love back in the middle ages, and there've been mass-produced Valentine's cards since Victorian times.

Sure, it's become horribly commercialised recently, but what hasn't?

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I kind of agree with you. It's nice not to have to justify (to yourself or anyone else) some display of affection, y'know? Not that you ever actively have to justify it, but you do tend to need to be sensitive to other people than just your partner at other times of the year. Which is probably healthy, tbh!